The past couple of years have seen a shift in the delivery of information management solutions. There is a move away from individual data integration and data quality initiatives managed by IT departments toward master data management (MDM) and an increased focus on cohesion between IT and business units. This creates a change in how information is applied within the organization. Until recently, IT was perceived as separate from business, with the management of information systems initiatives governed by technical staff and little contact with the business units they support. Although business and IT are not always run as separate entities, in many cases both sides do not understand the value of the other beyond IT supporting business functions through the use of technology.
As information becomes more valuable to organizations and with a move toward analytics that go beyond transactional reporting, the way data is collected and managed reflects overall business processes. This means that the information identified, captured and analyzed is driven by business problems as opposed to reviewing activities that have occurred in the past. The shift in data collection translates into the need for involvement from business units to identify the information required for better decision-making. Consequently, the role of business units in the management of organization wide data-driven initiatives become more important to ensure the successful delivery and management of data. Therefore, organizations put greater emphasis on initiatives that take into account an overall view of data that corresponds to the creation of a 360-degree view of customer, product and process.
The Move Toward MDM and Data Governance
The move toward organization wide adoption of MDM and data governance is still at its infancy, but provides insight into the future convergence of business and IT. Although the alignment of business an IT are discussed at length, actual strategy and implementation are slow at best. This is because one sure fire way to align business and IT across multiple organizations and industries does not exist – unique corporate cultures and business needs limit the ability of consultants, industry experts and organizations themselves from concretizing a strategy that works in multiple situations.
The general move toward full MDM options and an added focus on the managing of that data and those initiatives through data governance creates a new need for business units to become more involved in IT based initiatives. Even though IT departments may be the experts on where data resides and how it interrelates, only the business units that deal with day-to-day business decisions understand the full business impact of capturing and analyzing the right data.
Collaboration between Business and IT and the Link to MDM and Data Governance
Now, why and how do MDM, data governance and business/IT cohesion fit together? As the market moves from technology-based projects toward using data to gain a better understanding of what is happening in a respective industry, organizational use of data shifts from being technology-oriented to being business-driven. For instance, the concept of creating a single view of the customer, although a subset of MDM, really has the goal of increasing the customer experience, which in turn hopefully increases customer loyalty, perceptions of products and services, and ultimately translates into future and continued sales. The examples are endless and go beyond simple transactional processes.
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